DEPARTMENT OF STATE.

54 INTERFERENCES WITH MAILS.
4. These divergencies of views and criticisms are as
follows:
5. In the first place, according to the Government of
the United States, the practice of the Allied Governments
is said to be contrary to their own declaration,
in that, while declaring themselves unwilling to seize
and confiscate genuine mails on the high seas, they would
obtain the same result by sending, with or without their
consent, neutral vessels to Allied ports, there to effect the
seizures and confiscations above referred to, and thus
exercise over those vessels a more extensive belligerent
right than that which is theirs on the high seas. According
to the Government of the United States there should
be, in point of law, no distinction to be made between
seizure of mails on the high seas, which the Allies have
declared they will not apply for the present, and the same
seizure practiced on board ships that are, whether willingly
or not, in an Allied port.
6. On this first point and as regards vessels summoned
on the high sea and compelled to make for an Allied
port, the Allied Governments have the honor to advise
the Government of the United States that they have
never subjected mails to a different treatment according
a they were found on a neutral vessel on the high seas or
on neutral vessels compelled to proceed to an Allied port,
they have always acknowledged that visits made in the
port after a forced change of course must in this respect
be on the same footing as a visit on the high seas, and
the criticism formulated by the Government of the
United States does not therefore seem warranted.
7. As to ships which of their own accord call at Allied
ports, it is important to point out that in this case they
are really "voluntarily" making the call. In calling at
an Allied port the master acts, not on any order from
the Allied authorities, but solely carries out the instructions
of the owner; neither are those instructions forced
upon the said owner. In consideration of certain advantages
derived from the call at an Allied port, of
which he is at full liberty to enjoy or refuse the benefits,
the owner instructs his captain to call at this or that
port. He does not, in truth, undergo any constraint. In
point of law the Allied Governments think it a rule generally
accepted, particularly in the United States (U. S.
vs. Dickelman, U. S. Supreme Court, 1875; 92 U. S
Sep., 520; Scott's cases, 264), that merchant ships which
enter a foreign port thereby place themselves under the
laws in force in that port, whether in time of war or of
peace, and when martial law is in force in that port. It
is therefore legitimate in the case of a neutral merchant
ship entering an Allied port for the authorities of the
Allied Governments to make sure that the vessel carries
nothing inimical to their national defense before granting
its clearance. It may be added that the practice of
the Germans to make improper use of neutral mails and
forward hostile correspondence, even official communications
dealing with hostilities, under cover of apparently
unoffensive envelopes mailed by neutrals to neutrals,
made it necessary to examine mails from or to
countries neighboring Germany under the same conditions
as mails from or to Germany itself; but as a matter
of course, mails from neutrals to neutrals that do not
cover such improper uses have nothing to fear.
8. In the second place, according to the Government of
the United States, the practice now followed by the
Allied Governments is contrary to the rule of convention
11 of The Hague, 1907, which they declare their
willingness to apply, and would, besides, constitute a
violation of the practice heretofore followed by nations.